TAGGED: THE APOCALYPSE (4 page)

“STAND YOUR GROUND! The infected will not harm us. You have the covering of the Lord upon you
,” Samson, the cross bearer, turned and yelled loudly at the group. Warren could not sense any fear in the man. Several in the back ran and knocked on doors, pleading to get in. “Make the circle!” Samson ordered. Instantly, the flagellates formed a tight circle in the middle of the street. There were thirty or forty of them. Each convert held a trashcan lid or flat piece of wood and all had a club or a knife in the other hand. A trashcan lid was thrust into Warren’s hand. Warren could feel Sven squirming like a cornered animal under his other hand. “Stay here, brother. You are protected.” Warren was terrified too. Saying the words helped him to believe them. Thankfully, they were trapped inside the circle of flagellates.

A female
cat-thing locked eyes with him from at least a football field away. It was nude; covered with large angry red boils alternating with weeping black pustules, where the boils had burst. It had gigantic canine teeth and a thick full tangle of hair on its head that reminded him of a lion. But the worst for Warren was her/ its face. The beast wore a mask of rage and agony. It seemed to want to kill him to relieve its own terrible agony. Warren found himself fascinated by it. There were two others mirroring its approach on either side and behind them was a large mass of what appeared to be writhing darkness. There looked to be hundreds of them, maybe even a thousand or more, moving as a horde down this street.

The
flagellant beside him threw up on his leg. Warren shook his leg, and moved away a mere inch in the tight space, pressing against a bigger man on the other side, who didn’t give. The smell was awful. Another man vomited, then Tiffany. The stench from the beasts was overpowering. It was like being submerged up to his neck in fresh shit, sprayed by one thousand pissed-off skunks, then left in the hot sun for a couple of hours. Sven emptied his stomach on the street, trying unsuccessfully to miss the legs of the men around him. Warren was impressed he had held out so long.

“The Lord is
my shepard, I shall not want.” Samson, the cross bearer, led them in prayer. They repeated his words as one. The words calmed Warren. “He leads me beside quiet waters. He makes me to lie down in green pastures.”

Warren
felt the terror in his breast rising as the mass of undead beasts moved closer. The scripture called them locusts. He understood as he watched them. They consumed everything as they moved and left no human alive where they passed. The animals ran from them in terror, but the locusts did not pursue the animals. Their eyes were for the humans alone. The smell of death grew stronger and stronger until every stomach was emptied on the ground at their feet. “Move back!” The cross bearer ordered to get them out of the slippery mess.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil
,” the prayer continued.

“You are safe here
, brother.” Warren met Sven’s eyes calmly. Warren wanted to scream. He wanted to run for his life. He saw Tiffany watching him in terror from an inch away, her nose nearly touching his face. She sensed his fear and it frightened her even more. He realized that, despite their outwardly calm demeanors, all with him were as terrified as he, and their terror made them pack together even closer, like links in a chain. He was trapped. He couldn’t even move. “Let me out,” Sven said.

“No
, brother. It is safer here.”

“Thy rod and thy staff
, they comfort me.” Then a great roar rose from the flagellates and they lifted their clubs and knives in the air. The flagellates beat their shields with their clubs and knives and shouted like wild savages, preparing for the onslaught of the undead. A few nicked themselves to draw blood. Others whipped themselves and screamed out bible passages with wild eyes.

T
he flagellates fell silent. Every shield was raised, every knife and club at the ready, as the first wave came upon them. The undead beasts rammed into the shields but they didn’t pierce through. Instead, the beasts flowed around them as if their little group was a rock in a flood. For the most part, the beasts ignored them like they were a car or a fire hydrant. Warren thanked God for this miracle, as he did every time, because he knew that the beasts could easily jump over the barrier of the shields and savage them. But none did. The first wave was eight hundred or more – too many to count. All around, on every side, beasts leapt upon survivors and savaged them with their teeth and claws. All around were the screams and cries of the dead and dying. Through a crack, Warren saw a beast break through the window of a house, a woman screaming, then a gunshot. The noise drew them and two, three, ten, then fifty more (too many and too fast to count) flooded through the window into the house. A beast brought down a couple trying to run to the safety of a large SUV. In an instant, the other beasts, smelling blood, were upon them five, then ten, then fifty, tearing mercilessly at their flesh. Warren tore his eyes away, their screams ringing in his ears. Truly, they were like locusts. There were so many, how could anyone stand against them? They consumed everyone as they moved. No human was left standing. There was no escape. God’s judgment was being carried out before his very eyes.

At least five waves of
hundreds and hundreds of beasts flowed around his little group, before the larger group of beasts behind shifted course slightly to the left. Now there were only stragglers among the beasts; singles or groups of two or three running around and drinking the blood of the victims lying moaning on the streets. Warren could see humans further up the street, that had appeared to be dead, now rising to their feet and swaying drunkenly. One man had a huge chunk of flesh bitten from his face and another from his neck, yet he moved forward even though he appeared to be in enormous pain. Many of the newly changed screamed and contorted their limbs and faces in anguish. They moaned in pain almost continuously. They appeared to Warren as tortured souls, very much what he imagined hell would be, yet trapped in a dead body. As the disease progressed and their hair and nails grew and the physical body withered to a skeleton, the pain and anguish seemed to harden into an insatiable hunger and thirst. Their eyes grew bright with fresh hatred, their teeth and claws sharpened to razors, their bodies became nimble and strong for their work. They were like demons released on the earth, Warren mused, tortured souls whose only relief was the blood of the living. The newly dead were slow and moved like they were drunk. Best to stop them quick. In a matter of an hour, sometimes less, they would become feral and much more aggressive. Soon they would become the beasts and run with the pack.

The
flagellates broke into smaller groups of three to five and walked around smashing the skulls of the dead and newly changed. “You have to smash the heads. That’s the only thing that kills them. They are dead,” Warren Dubrowski explained.

“Why didn’t the beasts attack us?” Sven asked.

“We have the protection of the Lord. Because you stood among us, we protected you, but you are not yet one of us.”

There was the
pop
–
pop
of gunfire directly to his right.

“Use a club or a blade
, friend. The noise attracts them.”

“
Jackie! Where were you, brother?” Jackie, a large dark-skinned man, stood there, with a Glock 9mm in each hand, beside two dead beasts. They were recently infected, so had hardly changed at all.

“
I saw you strip off your shirt, but I was too far away to catch up before the horde came through. I locked myself in the attic of a house. That was some scary shit,” Jackie shook his shaved head sadly. “There was a family hiding in the basement. I heard their screams…but there was nothing I could do.”

Jackie
leaned in to whisper into Sven’s ear but Warren could still hear, “Raul sold me a bunch of guns and ammo. It’s even worse than I thought. Here, put your shirt on.” Jackie handed him his shirt.

“You are one of us
, brother.” Warren put his hand again on Sven’s shoulder, but could feel him drawing away with his friend Jackie near. His words felt hollow, as though they landed on deaf ears. “Leave all you have and come follow us. Don’t even return to your house for a bag or clothes. Come as you are. The Lord will provide. You are welcome to come too, friend.”

“Fuck off
!” Jackie turned his strong back to Warren. “Don’t listen to this freak. Do you want to live or do you want to die?” Jackie grabbed Sven and began pulling him away.

Sven stopped
Jackie, “I have to go back for Dixon and Bugs. They will starve without me. But, it’s true; the beasts did not attack us. We stood in the middle of the road. It’s as if they didn’t even see us.”

“Of course
, you may bring your family. However, the bible teaches that the end will cleave apart even father and son, husband and wife, brothers and sisters. If they resist you in this, you must go on without them,” Warren could feel Sven’s spirit moving away. The pull of this other man, Jackie, was very strong on him. There was a darkness surrounding this new man, Jackie. He looked like someone who had spent time in prison and had blood on his hands. He spoke directly to Sven, ignoring the other man, Jackie. “If you leave, brother, I don’t know if you are protected. You must come with us now.”

“Yes, come with us.” Tiffany stood
close beside Warren. “You were touched by the Spirit. You are one of us now.”

“You want to go with these fruit loops?
Beat yourself bloody... preach the Kingdom of God is at hand…beg for food?” Jackie stared at Sven. “If you do, you’re on your own. I’m not going with you.”

“It’s true. We carry little with us.
We face death daily. We depend on God to provide for our daily needs. It is a hard life,” Warren said.

“It’s the best life there is! Come with us!” Tiffany effused.

“Who doesn’t face death daily?” Jackie shook his head in disgust, “Look around!”

“In Him is
life and that life is the light of man. Join us, brother.” The cross bearer spoke with authority in a deep baritone.

“Is your name
really Samson?” Sven asked.

“Behold
, all things shall be made new. This is the end, my friend. Who I was before is of no consequence.” The strong man spoke quietly with great humility. “God will give you too a new name. Join us.”

“
Thank you. Something definitely happened here. Thank you, I mean it. I admire what you are doing, but…” Sven turned as Jackie again began pulling him away down the street.

Warren
could feel the darkness in the man Jackie. He watched them walking away. He believed he could see the dark spirits landing like flies on and off, on and off of this man Jackie. He could also see a light burning in the hippy Sven.

NUCLEAR POWER PLANT,
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

“We need to turn the lights out.” Susan, Eve’s mother, held her hands together in a gesture of worry. She was stooped and her face was pinched. She looked much older than her forty four years. Eve hoped she didn’t look like that when she was her age.

“What?” Dennis opened his
puffy eyes with a start, where he was dozing in a chair. The chair creaked loudly as he shifted his four hundred pound frame to sit up.

“No!” Brit almost shouted.
Brit was thirty years old, tall, slim, athletic and sported a full head of wavy brown hair. He was a fox. Eve could tell that the other nuclear engineers didn’t take his opinions seriously, maybe because he was young and handsome.

“Absolutely not!
We,” Kirk motioned with his long bony hand around the room at the others present, “are here to prevent meltdown. Keep this plant operational. We are here to keep the lights
on
.” Kirk was Eve’s father and the senior ranking engineer at the nuclear power plant. He was still in charge. Eve smiled encouragement at her father. He was the only thing keeping her mother Susan from nagging her to death, or worse, locking her in a room until she turned eighteen.

“The lights are drawing the refugees like flies. There’s more every day
, every hour. We are like a beacon in the dark.” Susan wrung her hands.

“
All those people out there will die. We should let them in.” Eve spoke up from outside the circle, where she was slumped very unlady like in her chair in apparent boredom.
Why were people so mean?
She wondered. They were discussing people’s lives. Those were real people out there. Susan burned her with a glare. Kirk listened attentively, as did Brit. Today, Eve’s hair was a calculated mess of locks falling every which way around her face. She wore big shit-stomper boots with what appeared to be truck tire tread soles ending below the knee. She wore a plaid mini skirt on her tiny waist. She wore no stockings on her slender and shapely bare legs above the boots and before the mini. On top, she wore a raggedly cut-off black sweatshirt with the sleeves gone, and cut in a midriff style which showed the maximum amount of firm, flat, youthful stomach. The black sweatshirt had been cut a little too high and showed a peek of her black lace bra on the bottom left, and the arm holes were too big, so that when she moved her arms, she was constantly in danger of revealing too much.On top of the midriff sweatshirt, she had draped a thick fishnet blouse which covered absolutely nothing and ended above the knee. On top of that, she wore a black waist length leather jacket with numerous zippers and chains dangling from it. Where her mother Susan was sterile and dry, every ounce of Eve’s one hundred and five pounds exuded anger, rebellion and most of all a fierce, challenging sexuality with her every movement. They seemed to expect her to say more, but that was it. Finally, Brit saved her.